MSNBC panel mulls the rights of Satanists as a “marginalized community,” or something

posted at 9:21 am on May 16, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

It’s everything you’d expect from All In With Chris Hayes, and so much less … less common sense, less intellectually honest, and less respectful of faith. Renowned Jesuit author Fr. James Martin looks at times like he’d accidentally wandered into a lunatic asylum during this segment, and after watching five minutes of Chris Hayes and Harvard’s Christopher Robichaud treat the now-cancelled “black mass” event like an actual religious practice rather than a hate-speech mockery of the Catholic Mass, Fr. Martin will not be alone in that confusion:

Martin offers a very close analogy when he suggests that Harvard wouldn’t have tolerated the burning of a Koran, even if wrapped in pseudo-religious practice. Muslims see that as a desecration of their religion, just as Catholics see the “black mass” — and given the nearly step-by-step mockery of Catholic liturgy in the latter, Catholics have a much better case to make. The entire point of this “service” is hatred towards Catholics in particular. Instead of addressing this point, though, both Hayes and Robichaud accuse Martin of spouting “false equivalencies” and start moaning over the power of “major religions” to keep the “marginalized” out of the debate.

Father Martin is not some finger-wagging, down-shouter of a shepherd (all-pulpit-no-pasture and forever on the harangue), and because that is true, and because his easygoing manner is well-known, you would think that his sobriety, here — his stark refusal to budge on the subject of Satanism, and the offensiveness inherent to any Black Mass being “re-enacted” in the public — would make an unusually strong impression on the host, Chris Hayes, and other guest.

You might think it, but sadly, you’d be wrong. No one in this video clip is thinking, “gee, Martin is no lunatic, and his gravity is palpable, so maybe there’s more to this than I know…” Rather, Hayes seems incapable of fully masking his amused condescension toward Martin’s concerns, and is willfully choosing not to hear his words; the two men prefer to travel campus-comfortable tracks, ranging from the predictable to the bigoted to the silly, with a side-trip to pick up a straw man. …

Notice, Martin addresses the “Black Mass” situation on Harvard Extension’s own terms. That body characterized the insult as a “cultural” event and compared it to a re-enactment of a Shinto Tea Ceremony; Father Martin suggests that a similar “re-enactment” of an anti-semitic or racial horror, like a lynching or a cross-burning, would quite rightly be a denounced as having no place on any campus or indeed in any public place. Why, then, would the mockery of the Catholic Mass be an acceptable insensitivity?

The answer does not come. Instead Hayes and Harvard’s Christopher Robichaud tries to rebut with overarching smugness. Unable to admit “rem acu tetigisti”, Robichaud suggests that Martin is intellectually “sloppy” and risks credibility by rejecting the priest’s very accurate question as a “false equivalency”; his argument essentially boils down to this: “marginalized communities” deserve sensitivity protections and respect, but “big powerful religions” do not. I wonder if he’d be fine, then, with a public burning of the Koran, since Islam, claiming a billion members, is a “big powerful religion.”

He and Harvard would most certainly not be fine with that. They would chalk that up as oppression of a marginalized community too, although the true motives would almost certainly be a little more in line with their survival instincts.

The chief absurdity, though, comes from the religious-liberty equivalency argument Hayes and Robichaud make in regard to the Satanists and the “Pastafarians,” a juvenile and tiresome satirical group of atheists mocking religious practice in general. The event was not staged as a religious event but a cultural event, and in any case the controversy wasn’t about the rights of Satanists to do what they do on their own property. It was about Harvard’s decision to host and sponsor the event, directly and indirectly, while claiming to be opposed to hate speech, marginalization, etc etc etc. Religious freedom wasn’t the issue at all, but that was the dodge Hayes and Robichaud used.

What about a case for the very wealthy? They make up the often claimed “1%er’s”. What could make up a more marginalized group than a group that only makes up 1%?? They are definitely a minority group. The abuse of this minority group is much like slavery. They are forced to pay about 40% of all the taxes that their “slave masters” reap the benefits from. Lets hope that they can, one day, overcome the bigotry hurled at them on a daily basis. How about some fairness for them?

Portraying what amounts to an anti-Christian defilement (which is exactly what a Black Mass is) as a “cultural event” tells me that at MSNBC, the only culture the multicultural types there do not consider “equal in validity” is Western culture.

How can Satanists be marginalized when they compose the very heart and soul of the Democratic Party?
Perhaps their love affairs with lust, perversion, abortion, booing God at their conventions, stealing off of the productive, and celebrating deceit and any means to an end happens to be stuff of God? I don’t think so.

OK here’s the false comparison: racism and “homophobia” are NOT crimes. To promote them is NOT a crime. Both fall under “freedom of speech” and are protected by the first amendment. The proposition “all black people are subhuman” is incorrect, but it is not the equivalent of saying “go out and kill black people,” which is an imperative, one that incites others to commit a crime. That’s illegal.

So the real objection here isn’t “Satanism mocks Catholicism.” That’s free speech. If these idiots wish to hold a black mass, that’s their right to do so. That’s not the problem with allowing Satanism on campus. The problem is that Satanism believes in the reverse of the ten commandments, at least when it benefits the Satanist: selfishness (the worship of self), materialism, no peaceful contemplation on spiritual things, breaking oaths, rebelliousness, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, theft, covetousness. Some of those are crimes. There’s no way to promote Satanism without promoting criminal behavior.

But noooooo, instead of pointing THAT out, the Catholics are concerned with how it mocks Catholicism. They’re not defending righteousness, or the Lord, but rather their religion. And that’s how we got into this mess in the first place: religionists who care more about their reputation than their relationship with their Redeemer.

that stuff that doesn’t exist when its applied to anything other than your idiotic fourth-century religious practices, complete with repetitive magic incantations, wizard robes, and an incense censor and spirit poles for the introduction of the spellbook!?

if only there were a hell for you to go to, ed morrissey, there would be a special corner indeed for the sort of blatant hypocrite like you.

Most religious dialogue could be classified as hate speech towards other religions. If you want to be really sensitive about it.

if one wants to be really sensitive about it, “none come to the father but thru me” and its modern interpretation is about as hateful as anyone else can get without picking the low-hanging fruits of islam.

but it’s obvious you’re missing the point.

ed has outed himself as the sort of vomitous, despicable cesspool of sanctimonious self-centrism that i used to think was only present in the liberal news media and talk radio.

how disheartening to see that the same authoritarian demands that one avoid offending a particular community — here catholics; i.e., ed’s community — that are permeating our college campuses and “polite society” in an apparent concerted effort to homogenise social propriety is repeated here at hotair, of all places.

who hired this dog turd, and didn’t they put something in the contract about reflecting general conservative/libertarian views about hot topics? surely this tenth-rate hypocrite can be reprimanded for suddenly taking a compulsive interest in the elimiination of “hate speech” everywhere — oh, with “hate speech” conveniently defined as “that which might offend catholics“.

that stuff that doesn’t exist when its applied to anything other than your idiotic fourth-century religious practices, complete with repetitive magic incantations, wizard robes, and an incense censor and spirit poles for the introduction of the spellbook!?

if only there were a hell for you to go to, ed morrissey, there would be a special corner indeed for the sort of blatant hypocrite like you.

yep, jaxis is the kind of poster who I think the regulars here would appreciate getting the banhammer. It’s not right for the rest to have to sit here and take it, but it’s not right to descend into the kind of hatred and muck that any honest response to jaxis calls for.

Now although I’m sure Jaxis would approve, I do wonder what Chris Hayes would think about a group of college age students who, for “educational purposes”, mind you, all agreed to wear crisp black uniforms and red armbands with a swastika emblazoned on it, while the publicly burned several Torah’s. Think Chris would see anything wrong with that?

that stuff that doesn’t exist when its applied to anything other than your idiotic fourth-century religious practices, complete with repetitive magic incantations, wizard robes, and an incense censor and spirit poles for the introduction of the spellbook!?

if only there were a hell for you to go to, ed morrissey, there would be a special corner indeed for the sort of blatant hypocrite like you.

“hate speech”!

jaxisaneurophysicist on May 16, 2014 at 1:09 PM

This one won’t last long… first time I have seen it, and this turd is already circling the bowl…

Now not only conscious acknowledgement of everybody’s right to freedom of conscience, political views, and private life is required from society, but also compulsory recognition of equality (though this may seem very strange) between good and evil—two opposing concepts.